Stern: "If benchmarks set are met, in my view the committee will vote to approve....

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Stern and the NBA dosent like relocation.......this we know, Stern says he feels its a failure for the NBA when a team fails in a city. but the cities to blame. No Stern and the NBA dosent want this, but they know Charlotte has burned thier bridges......Stern cant stop it though, he said what we had to do, and if we do, the Hornets are ours....its as simple as that, it dosent matter who or if hes unhappy with anybody........MEET BENCHMARKS, GET HORNETS........thats the only thing that means anything coming from his mouth! Not who hes unhappy with, or what he feels........MEET BENCHMARKS, GET HORNETS!

Originally posted by HornetDJ377 Stern and the NBA dosent like relocation.......this we know, Stern says he feels its a failure for the NBA when a team fails in a city. but the cities to blame. No Stern and the NBA dosent want this, but they know Charlotte has burned thier bridges......Stern cant stop it though, he said what we had to do, and if we do, the Hornets are ours....its as simple as that, it dosent matter who or if hes unhappy with anybody........MEET BENCHMARKS, GET HORNETS........thats the only thing that means anything coming from his mouth! Not who hes unhappy with, or what he feels........MEET BENCHMARKS, GET HORNETS!

The thing I'm worried with, is that after a few years, New Orleans becomes no better than Charlotte, meaning that I have lost a team for nothing. (not that Charlotte is bad, it's the owners fault)

Clarification! Please...

I am only responding to the comments and references on this board since I did not see or hear the press conference.

Should N.O. be concerned? Sounds like we MUST, repeat MUST, sell all club suites and finalize all 55 suite sales by April 8. Is that a correct interpretation of today's press conference.

Now, since most of the N.O. business community were in attendance, I would "hope" that we have a 100% probability of finishing the suite deals. I can appreciate given the deadline that some of the actual suite contracts have not been signed, typical legal delays!

Radio, TV and more sponsors signed on the "dotted line" are needed, ASAP, no later than April 8. How serious or "close" to signing these deals. Perhaps, these partners wanted to hear the position of the NBA before publicly committing.

Club Seats, guys I am VERY concerned about the cost and ability of the Hornets to sell approx. 1,000 seats priced, I believe, at $10,000! Can N.O. reach this goal?

In my humble opinion, this favored no one. He said nothing that I didnít already know.

WHAT?! How can you say that? He (and Colangelo) said if we meet the benchmarks, the committee will suggest approval of the relocation. You cannot get much clearer than that. So, all the talk about demographics and banks and arenas is out the door!

Thinking that way has cost Charlotte one team, continuing with that thought process will not help get another.

Charlotte isn't innocent; anyone in their right mind knows that. They waited too long, and messed around too much. I don't think that they ever really believed that the owners were serious about moving. But now they, Charlotte, know, and are serious about keeping the Hornets. It's NOT just Charlottes fault.

Re: Clarification! Please...

Originally posted by DenverHornet I am only responding to the comments and references on this board since I did not see or hear the press conference.

Should N.O. be concerned? Sounds like we MUST, repeat MUST, sell all club suites and finalize all 55 suite sales by April 8. Is that a correct interpretation of today's press conference.

Now, since most of the N.O. business community were in attendance, I would "hope" that we have a 100% probability of finishing the suite deals. I can appreciate given the deadline that some of the actual suite contracts have not been signed, typical legal delays!

Radio, TV and more sponsors signed on the "dotted line" are needed, ASAP, no later than April 8. How serious or "close" to signing these deals. Perhaps, these partners wanted to hear the position of the NBA before publicly committing.

Club Seats, guys I am VERY concerned about the cost and ability of the Hornets to sell approx. 1,000 seats priced, I believe, at $10,000! Can N.O. reach this goal?

Go Hornets, SELL, SELL, SELL....REAL deadline is April 8, 2002!

The club seats are about $4,000 but have a 3-5 year committment. I am not sure what the benchmarks are. Stern said the NBA would get with the owners to go over the benchmarks by Friday. He said club seats would be between 2000 and 2400 club seats. I am more worried about the radio/tv deals. However, Colangelo alluded to an extension if necessary, but I do not think anyone wants that.

Charlotte isn't innocent; anyone in their right mind knows that. They waited too long, and messed around too much. I don't think that they ever really believed that the owners were serious about moving. But now they, Charlotte, know, and are serious about keeping the Hornets. It's NOT just Charlottes fault.

Too many insults, too much arrogance and waaayyyy toooooo late. All I want to know is this: I have been pitching the denial story to CLT "fans" since January. Do you believe it now?

WHAT?! How can you say that? He (and Colangelo) said if we meet the benchmarks, the committee will suggest approval of the relocation. You cannot get much clearer than that. So, all the talk about demographics and banks and arenas is out the door!

FORGET CHARLOTTE AND FORGET THESE CHARLOTTE POSTERS. They are like La. Mosquitos. They fly around you and sting you every now and then, but, sometimes, you slap 'em dead.

I have said all along that Charlotte is out of the equation now. It is all about NOLA and the NBA. Charlotte will have to just sit back and watch for the next 18 days to see what we do. There is NOTHING that they can do to save the team for themselves. They can only hope for a miracle and a back door to fall into. It is over for them in terms of influencing the outcome of this move. In the meantime, I am sure that we will have to hear from these people on a daily basis about how we won't make the numbers. Ignore it; only time will tell. Goodbye CHARLOTTE!

This is New Orleans' best and probably last chance. We gotta do it. Put up or shut up!

IMHO, this has pretty much always been the case. Wooldridge and Martins have hinted broadly that there was a reason they set these benchmarks. People on this board have stated, correctly it appears, that they had information that the most important thing to the NBA was support on suites, club seats and corporate sponsorships. Hines goes to the All-Star game and what do they tell him? Meet the benchmarks and the team is yours. Now, here comes to David Stern. He says that demographics are important, that he doesn't like relocation, but has an open mind and understands Shinn and Wooldridge's situation in Charlotte ... which is not good. Granik basically says that the relocation committee won't go to Charlotte unless there is something to see there and right now he doesn't know of anything there. Taking out "new ownership clause" doesn't matter.

And now March 20 arrives, and guess what? Stern is unhappy about relocation but was open-minded about N.O. Now, he is satisfied about demographics and so forth and wants the benchmarks set. Then the relocation will go forward. Only a Charlotte poster in deep denial should be surprised.

Like say-what says, as long as the NBA Benchmarks are not set unreasonably fine, then we should be ok. Hopefully, the benchmarks are what were originally agreed upon as stated in the MOU (Stern did make reference to it).

It is time to move forward in a major way. What should Shinn/Wooly do to achieve their goals? Better have some more big parties in the arena and start marketing BR and Biloxi??? Where do you put your precious and scarce resources to achieve the objective in a limited time? Tough decisions. They have to get started right away. Those guys are going to work like mofos to get this done - they'll have to!

Did Stern really say this?

Forgive me guys, as I did not catch the conference via webcast, but, when asked by a reporter to assess our chances of landing the team on a scale of 1 to 10, did Stern reply "5"?

I gotta agree with WCH on this one. I do not like the way this proverbial gun is being held to our heads. I mean, if we are sitting at 1700 club seats on April 8th, do we get rejected without regard to the amount of time we had to do all of this. I remember Memphis getting handled with kid gloves, being granted all kinds of time and consideration to get their act together. I guess I don't like being held to a more difficult standard under what are truly far more contentious circumstances.

Re: Did Stern really say this?

Originally posted by akshun Forgive me guys, as I did not catch the conference via webcast, but, when asked by a reporter to assess our chances of landing the team on a scale of 1 to 10, did Stern reply "5"?

I do not recall anything like that and that would be contradictory to his comments at the press conference.

Another question from akshun

Did Stern also say that the benchmarks would be refined and that Ray and George would receive an update thereof on Friday? I hate to make it seem like I'm looking for negatives, but I would have thought that there would be no refining of benchmarks. I fear that they may be revised upward.

Normally, I would view these same comments from anyone else as totally positive, but I think at least some of us on this board are aware of my extreme distrust of David Stern.

Akshun!

Stern did say that New Orleans was at about a "5" out of 10 on the move, but he clarified this to mean in terms of the ticket sales. He would not give a number as to the overall package of the relocation, which seems very compelling. I think that the "5" he spoke of is probably a politically safe number for him. If the suites are firmed up with written agreements, the number should start to go up quickly. I don't think that will be a problem. Denverhornet got it right, I think. We need to basically sell between 900-1300 more club seats, and then we need to fill out the lower bowl of the arena as much as possible. The benchmarks will probably be those found in the MOU, since Stern did make one reference to that document. It seems to me that STern wants the following:

More Club seats (2000-2400) is what he stated.
Suites signed, sealed, and delivered. No verbal committments
More corporate sponsorships. Didn't give a number but will by fri.
Other business aspects. Who knows what, probably lease/tv deal

I hope this answers your question. Bear in mind that we have been given the recipe for success. It's time to go out and make some groceries so that we can get this deal done.